The Victory Over Life, Love and Death
by Flywheel Shyster and Flywheel
Summary: Victory: noun- 'a success or triumph over an enemy in battle or war' But alas, in the war of life, love and death, nobody walks away victorious.


The pen graced the paper carefully, forming the letters that no one ever expected to escape the young man's mind. Brainless. Slow. Retarded. The list of synonyms of the word 'stupid' he had been called over the years was endless.

His room was close to empty. His bed and his desk was all that was remaining. The old torn armchair and the TV had been destroyed in a fit of rage a week earlier. His gym bag was packed, resting on the bed, just waiting to get picked up. But he had to finish this before he could leave. Double-D couldn't write one. Eddy's was really more of a statement which was obviously used as evidence in the trial against Kevin. But this time… He would write for all of them.

_Who would've guessed that it would end like this? My two best friends… Dead._

* * *

><p>It was horrible. As soon as we entered the house, even I in my drug clouded state felt that something was wrong. Detective Christenson had called on both ambulance and backup. His partner, Detective Barr, was already there when we arrived at the place I once called home. I entered Eddy's house, the door being unlocked, with Christenson whilst Barr entered Kevin's house with some fellow officers.<p>

"Ed." The sound of my name gave him my attention. "Where's Eddy's bedroom?" I didn't understand why he was whispering but I decided to keep my mouth shut so I pointed down the hall towards the door. Double-D once told me that there are some situations where you just don't speak. This, I deemed, was one of those. Creeping down the hall, he stopped in front of Eddy's room, pistol drawn. He slowly opened the door and sighed at the sight, holstering the gun and pinching the bridge of his nose. I peeked my head in past Christenson's body. The sound of the ambulance's sirens hit my ears as I looked down on the moon drenched face, a smile forever frozen on it, of Eddy McGee.

* * *

><p><em>Eddy McGee. He was my very first friend. We were friends before we could walk or talk for that matter. We both had trouble gaining friends around the neighborhood so we stuck together and made it through. Was he greedy and selfish back then? A little but not more than babies usually are. That came later after he learned that he had to defend what was rightfully his, mostly from his brother. After a while, that line between what was his and what wasn't was erased in attempts to impress the elder McGee.<em>

_ In the end, Eddy was just defending what was rightfully his. His best friend's legacy, his best friend's pride. His best friend in general._

* * *

><p>I was crying. Bawling is more accurate actually. I locked myself in my room, nay, barricading it, neither eating nor sleeping. Drenching my sorrows in the endless inventory of gravy my parents had always gracefully supplied me with, that ran out after three days. My parents peeked into my room through the window, the dear window my friends used to pass through all the time, every sixth hour or so just to check up on me since I had locked the door and all. They were relieved that I was at least consuming the gravy but by the fourth day they were panicking slightly. They tried to get me to open up the door, the window, everything. It wouldn't have surprised me if they had a damn fuel truck with gravy sitting on the front lawn just waiting for me. I didn't acknowledge them though what with me being in my, more so than usual, catatonic state.<p>

That night was, hands down, the worst night of them all. I was sweating and freezing, vomiting and hallucinating of my dead comrades, not always in that order. I lost track of reality fast and by the time I had nothing more to heave up, the hallucinations got even worse. Sarah, Kevin, distorted images of Double-D and Eddy blaming me because I was alive and they weren't. I grabbed everything and anything within my reach to throw, tear or bite through in my fear, sorrow and rage. By the morning, my room was… A crash site. My head was placed against the toilet bowl, filled up to the brim with a brown-reddish substance. Stuffing from the armchair, fragments of sponges, pieces of the wallpaper, everything was everywhere in huge torn up and broken chunks.

"Edward?" The faint sound of my mom's voice outside my door barely made it into my clouded state but I registered it subconsciously.

"Are you okay son?" My dad had been surprisingly sympathetic during the two weeks I lost my three unofficial brothers. Usually when he went down the stairs, mom often or not forced him to socialize with me and then his voice would usually be annoyed or irritated over a missing a game. Suddenly it hit me, realization.

"Big brother?" My mom had always favored Sarah over me, giving her the only bedroom other than theirs, banishing me to the basement, always believing her favorite daughter instead of her older son, putting her daughter ahead of everything while barely making time for her son.

"We're worried about you!" My dad never cared. About anything that had with me to do. If it was Sarah, he could muster up some sincere interest for a few minutes but he had no tolerance with me.

"How about you open up and we'll talk over a nice bowl of gravy?" My body reacted to the thought of gravy and started to slowly drag itself out the bathroom door but my mind stayed on the subject. Sarah needed no further introduction. She had been a horrible sister, nay, a horrible person forever, never taking a step if she didn't benefit from it.

"Ed?" There it was. That's who I was. I wasn't part of this family. I never was. I was an Ed. Ed, Edd n Eddy, that was my family. Standing by each other through everything, supporting each other whenever, calling each other, seeing each other, tapping on the other's windows in the middle of the night, going through every possible scenario man has ever faced and coming out unharmed on the other side. We were a family… Now I was the only one left. Last man standing. The tragic end to us, the soldier's in life's unfortunate army. Double-D… Eddy…

"Son-"

"I AM NOT YOUR SON, I AM ED!" With a surprising surge of energy, possibly out of sudden disgust for the place I once called home, I pulled myself up on my table and crawled out of the window. Stumbling out on the lawn, I couldn't focus. My vision went blurry and my legs were threatening to give in but I went on. Double-D's house, that's the place where I would go. Almost falling just from stepping into the street off of the sidewalk, I slowly made my way towards Double-D's house but I never got very far. I smiled when I flew through the air, about to contact violently with the ground; when the car had hit me, it was the first time I had felt pure pain.

* * *

><p><em>Double-D… He was the best friend I could ever have had. He took care of me, he taught me and he was always there for me even when I wasn't even there myself. That means a lot since I wasn't even present mentally for 90% of our childhood. After his parents stopped travelling so much in their fields of work, it turned out that they were actually a lot more supportive of Double-D than any of us had expected. They saw how good friends we all were, after a while they treated me and Eddy like their unofficial sons. Of course, they and Eddy's parents were the ones I turned to after the accident. We had something in common. We had all lost two people we loved.<em>

* * *

><p>I groaned. Then I shifted. Then groaned some more. I was in horrible pain. The weird part was... I enjoyed it.<p>

"Doc! DOC!" My eyelids slid back and exposed my eyes to the faint hospital light. Eddy's father's voice was downright a blessing to my ears.

"Ed? Ed." I looked around the room as much as I could, my neck was restrained in something. Weirdly enough, the nausea that had tortured me... Was gone. "Ed, can you hear my voice? Can you speak?" I focused my eyes for a moment and found his eyes. Double-D's eyes. "Ed?"

"Yes doctor." He sighed in relief and I heard how his wife, Double-D's mom, broke out in sobs.

"Thank heavens boy, we were worried about you!" Eddy's father, standing on the right side of the bed squeezed my shoulder very carefully as if it were to break.

"What... What happened?" It seemed so easy to form words. To think. What had happened to me?

"Ed... You were in a car accident. Hit and run, we found you outside our home and took you here. The damage was surprisingly kept to a minimum, broken clavicle and a burst appendix was the most serious ones, all taken care of." Relieved, I closed my eyes and smiled. Thought the doctor wasn't finished. "However..."

"Yes?"

"Well... There was another problem that occurred as well. When we found you, you had already slipped into a coma." Coma? I remember Double-D saying something about that once... How some people could be out of it for weeks, months, even years or never wake up...

"How long?"

"A week son." Eddy's father made his presence known again.

"A week?" Eddy's funeral.

"Don't worry, we put the funeral on hold for now."

"Okay." I was once again relieved. There was still time. Though there was one question in the back of my head making itself reminded off. "Why did I go coma?"

"We... We found massive amounts of the muscle relaxer Valium in your system. Not only massive but fatal to most people. It was a miracle that you were even functioning on a basic level." Valium... Another word I had heard during... A whispered conversation between Double-D and Eddy during a sleepover at my place.

"Double-"

"Eddward knew." It was the first time since his funeral I had heard Double-D's name being spoke. "He came to me some years back with the theory of you being dependent on a drug. At first, I disregarded it as fantasies but after meeting you and observing you a few times, I too began to share his theory. Unfortunately, your father threw me out at the very mention of the subject. I didn't see you for quite some time after that." That explains why I was grounded so many times without reason.

"Doc, I'mma call the missus and tell her that Ed's alright." The doctor nodded and Eddy's father left my right side to walk just outside the room to call his wife.

"Will I be okay?" Suddenly, Double-D's mom appeared on my right and took my hand in hers. Looking over at her, she had an almost apologetic look in her eyes.

"Well, we're lucky that you were able to get out of the coma this week; because of the Valium, you need a new liver. This time next week, it will be completely destroyed so I'll go and put you up on it right now. You're in luck, due to your young age, you will be put rather high up on the list." With that, he smiled reassuringly and left the room, probably putting me up on the transplant list before doing anything else.

"We're so glad that you're alive Ed." The doctor's wife leaned down and hugged me, trying to conceal her quiet sobs in my shoulder. Me? I was trying to process the information. Drugs? Valium? Liver? From the few times Double-D tried to help me with the biology homework, you need the liver to live. Had I been dying this whole time? Now I was going to live? Suddenly, the relief washed away and was replaced with guilt. I was going to live... When Double-D and Eddy weren't. Their parents treated me like I was their own son lying there, bruised and drugged up while my own parents were nowhere to be seen.

"I know, at least Ed survived. At least one stroke of luck, huh?" Eddy's father was right, I was lucky. Within a month, all three of us Eds had met with Death. Only I walked away. Suddenly, it felt like I wasn't worthy of that luck.

* * *

><p><em>Unknowingly, I had been drugged all my life. How you might ask? What was the only thing I always had access to whenever I wanted it? Gravy. Boatloads of it. No problem for my parents to crush a handful of pills and stir it into a thermos, some mix or my own gravy boat during Thanksgiving.<em>

* * *

><p>Apparently, I was a lone child when it all began. I visited my aunt last week and she told me this entire story. She said that it was time I learned the truth.<p>

I was a very hyperactive and rarely calm child. During the nights, I used to keep my parents up all night; even when I slept in their arms I cried. I obviously disliked the dark.

When my parents couldn't stand me, they usually dropped me off at Eddy's place even though the McGee's saw me as a 'bad influence' on their little boy, more so than Eddy's brother apparently.

One weekend though, my mom had to go shopping and my dad golfing. The McGee's were out of town for the weekend and the only one in the area who was able to even remotely stand me was my grandmother. My dad was against the idea, of course he practically hated his mother-in-law, but to leave his son in the hands of 'freshly operated grand bat with decreasing hearing' was just madness. The golf round was too tempting though because I ended up there. I was apparently still, listening to grandma, for two minutes. When my parents closed the front door though, they heard how I jumped up and started to run around. They probably felt relief over leaving me there.

However, when the came back four hours later, they were flabbergasted. I was sitting on the floor, completely focusing on my own shadow on the floor, laughing every time it moved. My dad's state of shock was however short when he saw the opened bottle of Valium next to me. In a fit of fury, he stomped over to the couch and was about to wake my sleeping grandma up when my mom whispered "Wait."

Tear-eyed, she laughed at the sight of her son calm and peaceful for the very first time. My dad got the hint, swooped me up in his arms without even making a sound, grabbed the Valium bottle and walked us to the car.

For the next couple of weeks, my dad researched the side effects from Valium, long term use and as the weeks flew by, he and my mom started to think more and more that it would be a good idea. So, one morning when I was particularly troublesome, there it was. The pill that would come to dominate my life for the coming seventeen years. I hated it when people tampered with my food so mom distracted me with a stuffed animal while my father crushed the pill into my morning mixture of gravy and oatmeal. By the time the bowl was empty, I went empty. I sat there, calm and peaceful, staring into space.

It went on like that, with every meal came something with gravy (I could never eat oatmeal again for unknown reasons) that had at least one pill in it. As I grew, the increased the dose. When Sarah was born however, they had to push it to the max due to her always being in face about everything, even as a baby.

How did my dad get a hold of the Valium you might ask? At first, he went to several different doctors- If you would be so kind Doctor- as you can see in the journals in front of you for everything from anxiety and panic attacks, insomnia, even going as far as pretending to overdose on LSD and cocaine. After a year or so though, he and mom bought a summer house in Canada and so that way, they transported in Valium by the loads every other week due to my apparent increasing need after Sarah was born.

How can you trust this story, coming from the subject of this story who was absentminded during all of this? My dear aunt, whose journal and statement you also have in front of you, told me this story two weeks ago only days before she died. At first, she only wanted to see me one last time before passing but when she realized that I was off the drugs, she told me all of it; the entire story. As also stated in the journal, she was absolutely not senile by the time of her death; several doctors and nurses has testified that she was incredibly clear in her mind and for her age. Her death was unfortunate, we never had great contact before but when we got to talking the way we always should have talked, we connected. She only treated me the way she treated me because every time she looked at me, she saw what my mom and dad did to me every single day and that disgusted her.

As I record this, it has been three weeks since my transplant, just two since Eddy's funeral. Both of them, Double-D and Eddy, were cremated as was Jimmy. All three of them were too good for this world, the world didn't deserve to have them walk it.

Do I feel different? Do I ever! I can finally think clearly, I can focus on things, I can finally understand what to do, how to process information, most importantly of all; my skin has got back its pink-ish color instead of the jaundiced yellow one I always thought was healthy. Everything. If I'm not mistaking myself, the good doctor will have showed you some of his home movies of his son with me and Eddy and as you can see, there is a significant, if not massive, difference between the person I was then and now. If this was being written instead of recorded, anybody who knew the both of us would've thought that Double-D had written it.

That is my testimony to the court. I do apologize for not being able to be here but there are several things that I need to do elsewhere. Also because I can't stand Peach Creek anymore. It represents a time in my life that is now over. Our dear friend Kevin made sure of that. In an ironic twist of fate, I also became free due to his actions. It's weird really, I have lost my two best friends but now... All three of us are free.

My name is Ed. Cheese and macaroni.

* * *

><p><em>By the time you've gotten to this part Dr. and Mrs., I will be gone. Not dead, but travelling the world outside of Peach Creek. As by his request, I will find Eddy and Double-D a final resting spot together so I'm bringing their urns as well. I apologize for a letter like this but too many people would end up stopping me from going if I told anybody.<em>

_If you are confused doctor, this is my letter farewell. We will see each other another day but for now, goodbye. Along with it, there are two video tapes with my testimony for the upcoming trial against my parents as well as the one for Kevin's. Instructions for each one are taped to them. In the envelope, there is a grand total of $15000, a part of a larger sum I received when I sold my comic book collection; with it, I would like you along with the McGees to start a support center for children and teens. For those who are struggling with their sexuality, problems at home of various kinds, addictions, eating disorders, everything from A to Z. I know my friends would've loved that. Don't tell Eddy that it won't be rather profitable though, he'd kill me._

_This is the end of my story here in Peach Creek, where I spent my childhood and my teenage years. Seventeen years have I lived here but it barely took seventeen days for it all to collapse. I'm thankful but filled with remorse at the same time. To be free feels tragic when I've lost them. Jimmy. Double-D. Eddy. I shall never forget them, I could never forget them. We were parts of each other as they still are parts of me. I still believe that Double-D is looking over my shoulder to correct my spelling and grammar, Eddy suggesting that I deliver it directly to your door to save money and Jimmy fighting to at least put the address on the front. It warms my heart to know that I am never alone. Wherever I go, I will always have my friends with me. The journey in front of me don't feel so long when I keep that in mind._

_Double-D died. Eddy loved. I lived. The end._

_Ed._


End file.
